Sharh Alfiyyat Ibn Malik al-Musamma Tahrir al-Khasasa fi Taysir al-Khulasa
- Author died
- 749 AH
- Editions
- Maktabat al-Rushd
Sharh Alfiyyat Ibn Malik al-Musamma Tahrir al-Khasasa fi Taysir al-Khulasa (Liberating from Deficiency in Facilitating the Epitome) is a commentary on Ibn Malik's (d. 672 AH / 1274 CE) grammatical didactic poem al-Khulasa (widely known as Alfiyyat Ibn Malik), composed by the Shafi'i jurist, grammarian, and man of letters Ibn al-Wardi (691–749 AH / 1292–1349 CE) .
Background and Purpose
Ibn al-Wardi's connection with the Alfiyya was established early in his education through his teacher, the Shafi'i chief judge Ibn al-Barizi (Sharaf al-Din Abu al-Qasim Hibat Allah), in whose residence Ibn Malik had originally composed al-Khulasa . After receiving an authorization (ijaza) in the work from Ibn al-Barizi, Ibn al-Wardi taught it extensively and granted authorizations to numerous students and contemporary scholars .
Having studied earlier commentaries—most notably the foundational commentary of Ibn Malik's son, Ibn al-Nazim—Ibn al-Wardi identified both omissions in explaining the text and excessive detail that grammar students outside advanced specialization did not require . He composed Tahrir al-Khasasa to provide an accessible, intermediate commentary that resolves the intricacies of the verses without being wearisomely long or deficiently brief .
Method and Contents
In structuring his exposition, Ibn al-Wardi adopted a prose paraphrase of the poem's concepts rather than parsing each verse line by line . His approach is marked by several distinct features:
- Critical Emendations (Istidrakat): Rather than limiting himself to passive explanation, Ibn al-Wardi provided corrections and alternative phrasing to certain formulations used by Ibn Malik, supplying essential conditions, caveats (muhtarazat), and grammatical completions (tatimmat) .
- Engagement with Ibn al-Nazim: Ibn al-Wardi noted in his introduction that his commentary is roughly one-fourth the volume of Ibn al-Nazim's commentary, yet resolves matters left unexplained by Ibn al-Nazim, adduces additional textual evidence (shawahid), and incorporates restrictions (quyud) absent from the latter's work .
- Conciseness and Focus: He utilized most of Ibn Malik's original examples and avoided lengthy digressions into scholarly disputes, mentioning dissenting views only when substantiated by clear evidence . He also drew directly from Ibn Malik's broader grammatical works for definitions and key formulations .
Manuscripts and Publication
Manuscript copies of Tahrir al-Khasasa are recorded in the Raza Library in Rampur, India (MS 4031), the Bursa Library in Turkey (MS 1/359), and the Egyptian National Library (Dar al-Kutub al-Misriyya, MS 4/96) . The text was edited and studied by 'Abdullah ibn 'Ali al-Shallal, based on the Rampur manuscript, and published by Maktabat al-Rushd .
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